Modern vehicles, whether aircraft, sea craft, or automotive, are typically “drive by wire” (DbW) vehicles in which electrical and/or electromechanical components exchange digital signals over a wired and/or wireless in-vehicle communication network to cooperate in operating and controlling the vehicles and interfacing users with the vehicles. The components have largely replaced mechanical linkages traditionally used to operate and interface users with vehicles, and have provided the vehicles with a resolution of vehicle control and an expanding menu of functionalities and services that were impossible or impractical to implement or even to conceive of in the past.
By way of example, a modern automotive vehicle may for example be home to as many as a hundred or more electronic control units (ECUs) that communicate via the in-vehicle network with each other and with sensors and actuators that monitor and control vehicle functions to operate the vehicle and interface the vehicle with a user. The ECU's may, by way of example, be used to control the vehicle engine, power steering, transmission, antilock braking (ABS), airbag deployment, cruise control, power windows, doors, and mirror adjustment. In addition, an in-vehicle network typically supports on board diagnostic (OBD) systems and communication ports, various vehicle status warning systems, such as engine temperature and TPMS (tire pressure monitor system), collision avoidance systems, keyless entry, audio and visual information and entertainment (infotainment) systems, and/or processing of images acquired by on-board camera systems. The in-vehicle network in general also provides access to mobile communication networks, Bluetooth, and/or WiFi, interfaces, vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I), communications, the Internet, and/or GPS (global positioning system).
Various communication protocols have been developed to configure, manage, and control communications of vehicle components that are connected to and communicate over an in-vehicle communication network. Popular in-vehicle network communication protocols currently available are CAN (control area network), FlexRay, MOST (Media Oriented Systems Transport), Ethernet, and LIN (local interconnect network). The protocols may define a communication bus and how the ECUs, sensors, and actuators, generically referred to as nodes, connected to the communication bus, access and use the bus to transmit signals to each other.
The growing multiplicity of electronic control systems, sensors, actuators, ECUs and communication interfaces and ports, that an in-vehicle communication network supports makes the in-vehicle communication network, and the vehicle components that communicate via the communication system, increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks that may dangerously compromise vehicle safety and performance.